The Dusk of Time
by Shay McSudonim
Summary: Chrysophrase-centric Peggy Sue Oneshot.


AN: This oneshot has been in my drafts since 2017. At this point, I don't think I'll be expanding it into anything longer. But, if anyone else wants to give it a shot, then by all means be my guest.

* * *

It was a sillier universe than our own, more brash and less subtle. Exaggerated. With larger-than-life personalities, larger-than-life stakes, and even—if one could believe it—larger-than-life _life_.

In short, it was a _different_ universe, not only from our own, but also from the Discworld, which our universe so often views through a certain fantasy series, written by a British Author of no small renown.

For one thing, _this_ one had gone through an industrial revolution or two.

Zoom in, past the turtle, the elephants, and Cori Celesti, down to Ankh Morpork, City of a Thousand Surprises, chief of which being that it ever managed to adopt indoor plumbing.

Where once the Tower of Art had stood as the tallest building, these days skyscrapers rose, dominating the skyline. Cars and buses filled now-modern city with smog, noise pollution, and other evidence of industry. The Ankh, of course, remained undrinkable, though nowadays this was courtesy of wastewater from factories upstream. But, in all fairness, the garbage collection had been scaled up over the centuries to match the population. It was a cleaner city these days.

Ostensibly, at least.

In the streets, members of the Discworld's various races walked, rode, or drove about their business, existing, if not in harmony, then in a sort of détente. Or at least something approaching al dente.

The title of Patrician was still around, but these days it was an elected position.

And Chrysophrase the Troll was currently the one hundred and twenty-sixth Patrician of Ankh Morpork. He had held the post for three terms. If he won the next election, then he would have reached the term limit.

Tonight, however, he wasn't on the campaign trail. Far from it, in fact, for tonight he was hosting a party at his estate whose guestlist was composed entirely of Trolls.

And not just any Trolls: no, these were the Trolls from the old days.

Detritus and Ruby, and their kid, Brick, sat over with Bluejohn and Schist in a cluster of Veteran Watch Trolls.

The Diamond 'King' of Trolls—more of a ceremonial position these days—sat with a group of the nobles, those who had been working class, once upon a time.

Those who had stayed working class sat according to union loyalty in some complicated system of their own devising.

Chrysophrase himself sat with the old gang, as they reminisced about the past.

"Why, back then, we were the kings of the city's organized crime!" exclaimed Hardcore.

Over bubbling mineral cocktails, the others nodded, as they lost themselves in nostalgia.

"The humans would tremble in fear when they saw us," Coalface agreed. "And Dwarves? Ha! They were left quaking in their boots at the thought of running into us in a dark alley!"

"Hear hear!" The rest of them chorused.

Then, the reminiscence turned to the cultural, to events that few of them had any first-hand experience with.

"And that was just in the city," said Chalky, who had never done anything more criminal than smuggling. "Back in the mountains, Dwarf-hunting was a sport! And the Humans were only good for making drums out of their skin!"

"Ah, the Good Old Days," agreed Chrysophrase. "What I wouldn't give to be back there! Back then a Troll was a Troll! None of this stuffy politicking or namby-pamby _paperwork."_

The others made to nod, sympathetically, once more, but they cut themselves off as something on the other side of the room went, 'plink.'

The other Trolls appeared mostly unbothered, but the Breccia had survived enough assassination attempts to recognize this particular sound.

"Everybody out!" bellowed Chrysophrase. "It's a freeze-n-smash!"

* * *

Trolls are notoriously difficult to kill. This was a fact discovered by many an angry human, dwarf, or any other organic species on the Disc.

…and by Trolls, as well, as it turned out, because no species has yet existed which failed to invent the crime and/or sport of murder.

And, much like their squishier counterparts, Trolls often resorted to assassination as a means of resolving interpersonal conflict.

The Assassins Guild, though forcibly dissolved more than a century ago, along with most of the other criminal guilds in the city, had left a lasting impact of the so-called 'culture' of cutting the thread binding other beings to life.

In particular, though there was now no guild to enforce aesthetic, there remained a certain… call it a 'trend' of elegance and efficiency, often followed when offing political rivals and/or job competitors.

For a Human, or a Dwarf, this was not difficult: a crossbow to the heart, some poison down the throat, and most species keeled over with little fanfare.

But not so much for a Troll, unfortunately.

While Trolls _could_ be poisoned with the right combination of chemicals, it was usually a slow process, unless prohibitively expensive toxins were procured.

For decades this problem had vexed would-be hit-men (and -women, and -beings), until, as so often happened, technology offered a solution.

While it was certainly possible to bludgeon a Troll to death, it was normally a messy affair.

Freeze the Troll beforehand, however, and they would shatter far more easily and quickly, with some professionals even claiming that the shards were fine enough to be considered dust, making disposal of the corpse as easy as sweeping the floor afterwards.

All surviving members of the Breccia had long ago learned to recognize the particular sound that a certain liquid made as it dripped onto the floor, and thus Chrysophrase had immediately raised the alarm.

The Watch Trolls had straight-away set about trying to break down the now-sealed doors.

"Put your backs into it!" Detritus roared, as he strained against the door himself.

Among the civilians, there could be heard shouts of panic, along with frantic prayers to Silicarous and Gigalith, but even those were cut short as the dripping from the vents became a torrent, and the room was flooded with liquid nitrogen.

All of the trolls were frozen in place, helpless to do anything but watch, as the ceiling was brought down by explosive charges, smashing them all to pieces.

* * *

Trolls believe that time runs backwards. This is assumed to be for any number of reasons. For example, Trolls, being nocturnal, hold dusk as the end of one day and the start of another. Dusk comes after dawn temporally, but before it conceptually.

This is not the reason.

Also, because one can see the past, this could lead to a superstition that the past is in front of the observer, leading Trolls to conclude that the past lies ahead.

This is also not the reason.

In fact, the reason that Trolls believe Time to run future-to-past is both more mundane than any layman might assume and more wild than any magic theoretician might come up with.

Simply put, when a Troll dies traumatically and suddenly enough, they are thrown diagonally back through time. That is, they're thrown to the past, backwards—and sideways—through time, to a different branch of the proverbial trousers of time. Their old 'leg' still exists, but with the troll in question not leaving behind so much as a corpse.

The death must be quick for it to occur, and a Troll's sheer durability makes that unlikely.

But enough anecdotes and legends had survived, especially in recent years, that this was not entirely unexpected.

Thus, when the Trolls found themselves all alive and in a vast field of ice, they were confused, but, due to the low temperatures, they were in as good a position to solve problems as they'd ever been in their lives.

When they spotted a group of humans hunting and gathering, it made them nervous, and they shuffled off in another direction to continue their conversation in the lee of a hillside.

They argued until day turned to night, and Marble the astronomer gave out a cry and pointed to the sky.

"The Stars!" she exclaimed. "Look at the stars!"

"What about 'em?" asked Schist.

"Those stars are the stars of four thousand years ago, is what!" began Marble. "We're in the middle of the third Ice Age! We've got another five hundred years before the climate warms!"

"We've… gone back in time?" asked Ruby.

"What else could it be?" said Marble, still staring at the sky in disbelief.

"Then, those humans…" said Brick, watching where a few human scouts had followed their group and were still observing.

* * *

Chrysophrase, Patrician of Ankh Morpork, had died in an assassination on the forty-first day of the year of the Squid. As Old Vimes used to say, people trying to kill you was how you knew you were on the right track. Thus, while Chrysophrase had died cold, afraid, and in a great deal of pain, he had also died without regret.

…only to wake up on a field of ice to Marble telling him that they were four thousand years in the past.

Now, Chrysophrase hadn't thought of himself as having changed, since his Breccia days. Sure, he'd acknowledged that violence wasn't usually the only or best solution to most problems, but he'd thought of himself as basically the same Troll he'd always been.

He. Was. _Wrong. _

Chrysophrase had been a politician. He'd been a diplomat. He'd taken courses on leadership and on inter-species relations.

Because, despite what he might've said while in the grip of nostalgia, it was a very different prospect to actually go back to the Good Old Days, and face the prospect of viewing Humans and Dwarves as things to be stepped on, things to be killed, and most damning of all, as things to be exterminated.

Because, here was the thing: Chrysophrase had become accustomed to forgiveness. To Trolls and Dwarves putting Koom Valley behind them. To Orcs and Goblins walking the streets freely. Even to Nac Mac Feegle attempting compromise. To coexistence, and, if it was strained, at least it was honest.

He was used to being a Troll of civilization. To solving his problems with words, even if those words sometimes had to be shouted.

To go from his current self to being a Breccia Leader again… it was unacceptable. Chrysophrase found himself gripping a rocky outcropping so hard that it crumbled. He was strong, still. Living soft hadn't done anything to diminish his physical strength.

He saw the human scouts who had followed after them looking at their group in terror. The human hunting-group had stumbled across a larger group of trolls than they'd likely ever seen in their lives, and the scouts knew—they _knew_—that there was little they could do to stop the slaughter that they all seemed to think was inevitable.

Around Chrysophrase, his lieutenants seemed to be thinking along similar lines.

"I'm going to go find a mammoth and give it to the humans," Coalface announced.

Chrysophrase smacked the offending Troll's head. "No," he said. "We're not going to treat the humans like children. That would not. Be. Good. Understood?"

"But… we can't just sit here and do nothing," protested Hardcore, as Coalface rubbed his skull in sullen silence.

"Underneath the ice, there's bedrock," observed Serpentine, who had been head of a construction company. "Good foundation," she continued. "We could go to quarry, build a settlement. Probably be easier than fighting this time's Trolls and Dwarves for the mountains, or fighting the Humans for the caves in the foothills."

At this suggestion, all eyes turned to Chrysophrase. They looked to him, not the Watch, and not Shine. For all that had changed, his status as leader apparently hadn't.

"We'll build a city," Chrysophrase announced. "Establish trade with the Mountain Trolls, and with the other species. In the meantime, who wants to be ambassador?" he finished, with a glance at the humans still watching them.

From among the volunteers, he eventually chose Sandstone, a friendly, if blunt, Troll to go as ambassador to the Humans. Malachite, the best among them at ancient language, would to go to the Dwarves. And Shine, of course, would go to the Trolls.

After consulting with the two history buffs that had come with them, Detritus, Ruby, and Brick had set off to some place called 'Holy Wood' to 'Destroy the Portal,' whatever that meant.

Jasper was off to look for the Octavo, the importance of which was slightly clearer to Chyrsophrase, even if he had no interest in such a thing, himself.

Coalface and Corundum announced that they were off to look for Ice Giants to fight, before wandering off.

But everyone else had stayed, ready to build.

* * *

Chrysophrase had died on the forty-first day of the year of the squid, and yet, here he stood, thousands of years in the past, arguing over the price of iron with a Dwarf merchant who seemed to think that Chrysophrase had been born yesterday.

Over the next week, he'd have to deal with the Troll and Human delegations as well.

And then, once the climate thawed, they'd get to deal with the Dryads, Dragons, Gnomes, and—here he shuddered—Elves.

But, for now, things were simple. As simple as interspecies relations ever got, at least.

Before he could become too lost in his thoughts, he wrenched his attention back to the present. The building was heated to match Dwarf sensibilities, which meant that Chrysophrase needed all the focus he could get.

This was unfortunate, because Coalface chose this moment to crash, noisily, though the wall of the meeting-house.

"What did you do?" asked Chrysophrase, turning to his wayward lieutenant.

"Nothing," said Coalface, entirely too innocently.

Chrysophrase treated this with all the credulity it deserved. That is to say, 'none.'

"It wasn't me!" Coalface exclaimed. _"Hardcore_ was the one who said we should climb Cori Celesti, and _Chalky's_ the one who got into a fistfight with Sek!"

Chrysophrase blinked. "Seven Handed Sek?"

Coalface nodded.

"_Why?"_

Coalface's brow wrinkled in confusion. "I don't understand the question."

Chrysophrase sighed. "If I go outside, am I going to find a very angry god destroying my rock-damned town?"

"No," said Coalface.

"...is that because I'm going to find a god _and Chalky_ destroying my town?"

"Maybe," admitted Coalface.

Chrysophrase made a somewhat brusque apology to the Iron Trader, before heading out through the hole in the wall, and down to Main Street, where most of the noise seemed to be coming from.

About a year after they'd arrived in the past, an old Human wearing saffron robes had warned them against changing anything, lest they utterly destroy the future as they knew it.

Of course, they had laughed at his instructions and ignored them.

But, regardless of his stance on temporal isolationism, even Chrysophrase was aware that there was a difference between introducing weapons and technology a few centuries early and _getting into a fistfight with a god._

At this point, Chrysophrase couldn't even begin to guess what kind of a future they were headed towards, especially if people kept pulling stunts like this.

But still, he mused—in the last moment of contemplation he would likely have that day—he wouldn't miss it for the world.


End file.
